Leftist Grandpa

These are the writings of a middle-aged guy trying to be as moderate as I possibly can. Here is where I put down in words the stuff that comes pourin' outta my head, and do my bitchin' and complainin' about the government or whatever else pisses me off. Everything and everyone are fair game. These are my ramblings, rantings and ravings with the occasional twist of humor and/or sarcasm.
All this while doing my part to fight the Fascists.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

For quite some time now many of us have been talking, writing, and discussing the possibility and probability of the United States becoming a fascist state and/or empire. This coming mid-term election on Tuesday could be that turning point. We may very well turn into 1930's Germany, and if so, we all may find that we liberals may very well become the targets of the far right in a way we have never seen before.

The following is an from an article at Alter Net which I found very interesting as well as a little frightening.

Fascist America: Is This Election the Next Turn?

It's not fascism yet; but if the Tea Party manages to get its hands on the levers of power, it will be.

October 22, 2010 | In August 2009, I wrote a piece titled Fascist America: Are We There Yet? that sparked much discussion on both the left and right ends of the blogosphere. In it, I argued that -- according to the best scholarship on how fascist regimes emerge -- America was on a path that was running much too close to the fail-safe point beyond which no previous democracy has ever been able to turn back from a full-on fascist state. I also noted that the then-emerging Tea Party had a lot of proto-fascist hallmarks, and that it had the potential to become a clear and present danger to the future of our democracy if it ever got enough traction to start winning elections in a big way.

On the first anniversary of that article, Jonah Goldberg -- the right's revisionist-in-chief on the subject of fascism -- actually used an entire National Review column to taunt me about what he characterized as a failure of prediction. Where's that fascist state you promised? he hooted.

It's funny he should ask. Because this coming election may, in fact, be a critical turning point on that road.

The Fascist America series of three articles (the other two are here and here) was built out of Robert Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism -- a landmark work of scholarship that lays out that specific conditions and prognosis of fascism as a political form. Paxton defined fascism as:

...a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Paxton laid out the five basic lifecycle stages of successful fascist movements. In the first stage, a mature industrial state facing some kind of crisis breeds a new, rural movement that's based on nationalist renewal. This movement invariably rejects reason and glorifies raw emotion, promises to restore lost national pride, co-opts the nation's traditional myths for its own purposes, and insists that the country must be purged of the toxic influence of outsiders and intellectuals who are blamed for their current misery.

(Sound familiar yet?)

In the second stage, the movement takes root, turns into a real political party, and seizes a seat at the table. Success at this stage, Paxton writes, "depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner."

(Paging the Party of No....)

In the face of this deadlock, the corporate elites forge an alliance with rural nationalists, creating an unholy marriage that, if it continues, will soon breed a fascist state. And, of course, this is precisely what's happening now between the Koch Brothers, the oil companies, Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party.

The majority of history's would-be fascist movements have died right at this stage -- almost always because of the basic authoritarian ineptitude of their leadership, which ensured that they'd never gain anything more than a small and temporary handful of seats at the political table. The successful fascisms, on the other hand, were the ones that held together and to gained enough political leverage that capturing their governments became inevitable. And once that happened, there was no turning back, because they now had the political power and street muscle to silence any opposition. (Fascist parties almost never enjoy majority support at any stage -- but being a minority faction is only a problem in a functioning democracy. It's no problem at all if you're willing to use force to get your way.)

According to Paxton, there are three quick questions that let you know you've crossed that fail-safe line beyond which an emerging fascist regime has too much power to be stopped:

1. Are [neo- or protofascisms] becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and feelings and wield major influence on the political scene?

2. Is the economic or constitutional system in a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities?

3. Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge?

If the answer to all three is "yes," you're probably on for the rest of the ride, which can run for at least a decade or two before it burns through.

A year ago, I noted that we were already three for three on these questions. Now, the "yes" answers are far more resounding. With over 70 Tea Party candidates running for major state and federal offices on the ballot this November, it's fair to say that the 2010 election is shaping up as a national referendum on the Tea Party's future viability. And if they succeed at winning enough of these races, it may very well be the last vote on the subject we ever get.

The AlternativesThere are only a few ways this plays out. A few scenarios:

1. The Tea Party is rejected outright by the voters on November 2. A handful of their candidates do win their races; and for the next few years, the Democrats have a grand time pointing out their sheer wingnuttitude, bolstering a compelling case against electing any more of them in the future. The party begins to lose momentum, and in a few years is defunct.

2. The Tea Party elects a credible number of these 70-odd candidates -- enough to make a solid showing and establish its political bona fides, but not enough to get anything serious done. If this happens, progressives need to work fast and hard. If this right-wing tide continues to build as we head into the 2012 election, we'll still be cruising straight into a fascist future -- just not quite yet. There's time to stop it, but the momentum is not on our side -- and stopping it only gets harder with every passing week.

3. A solid majority of the Tea Party candidates win their races, cementing the movement's lock on the GOP and turning it into a genuine political power in this country. They've already promised us that if they take either house of Congress, the next two years will be a lurid nightmare of hearings, trials, impeachments, and character assassinations against progressives. (Which could, in the end, backfire on the GOP as badly as the Clinton impeachment did. We can hope.) Similar scorched-earth harassment awaits officials at every other level of government, too. And casual violence against immigrants, gays, and progressives may escalate as the Tea Party brownshirts become bolder, confident that at least some authorities will either back them up or look the other way.

In this scenario, the fail-safe point -- the point beyond which no country has ever turned back from the full fascist nightmare -- may well be behind us when we wake up on November 3. From there, the rest will play out in agonizing slow motion; and the character of the rest of this decade will hinge almost entirely on whether the corporatists, the militarists, or the theocrats ultimately get the upper hand in the emerging regime.

Really? Are you serious?It's fair to wonder if the Tea Party deserves to be taken this seriously. After all, there's always been this faction in US politics -- the 10-12% rightwing authoritarian hard core that fueled McCarthyism and the Bircher movement and the Moral Majority; that voted for Goldwater and then George Wallace and even put KKK leader David Duke into office for a time. The far right has always been with us. It's one of the constants in our political landscape.

But they've always been a fringe movement, and it's mostly kept to itself. What's different now is that all the crazy ideas of the radical right -- climate and evolution denialism, banning contraception, sovereign citizenship, End Times theology, white nationalism, all of it -- have been catalyzed by the magic of the Internet and widespread economic disaster into one coherent mass subculture that, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday, has attracted a full 35% of the country's likely voters. According to Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, the Tea Parties are a broad movement that brings together several preexisting formations on the political right:

-- Economic libertarians who worry about big government collectivist tyranny

-- Christian Right Conservatives who oppose liberal government social policies

-- Right-wing apocalyptic Christians who fear a Satanic New World Order

-- Nebulous conspiracy theorists who fear a secular New World Order

-- Nationalistic ultra-patriots concerned that US sovereignty is eroding

This unification of right-wing forces around radical far-right ideas has never happened on anything like this scale in modern American history. And it's why we need to recognize the Tea Party as something unique under the political sun -- and seriously evaluate the future that awaits us if it becomes any more powerful.

That future is a painful thing to contemplate. I've been called an alarmist for even daring to use the F-word to describe the situation we're facing. But that's one of the universal hallmarks of fascism: by the time everybody finally wakes up and realizes that they're in it, it's usually too late to do anything about it. Here's how Milton Mayer described his experience of this as the Nazi thrall descended in Germany:

In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic.

And yet the day comes when it's all too clear, Mayer writes -- and on that day, it's too late to stand up.

Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

There are only a few days left before the election. Whatever you do between now and then will be a small matter -- a matter of making a few phone calls, of knocking on some doors, of following up with friends. And yet any compromise now could be the one we will remember with breaking hearts five years from now, when the country we knew is gone, and our future has been seized by people who represent the worst of everything we are.

Be the one who sees where this is taking us. Be the one who stands while you still can. The future these people have in mind for us is one that dozens of countries have already lived through; and all of them will carry the scars for centuries. It's not fascism yet; but if the Tea Party manages to get its hands on the levers of power, it will be.

If this doesn't move people to get into gear and do something to stop this destruction of our democracy, I really don't know what will.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

( The following was written by Arthur Blaustein, who is the author of "The American Promise - Justice and Opportunity, and the chair of the editorial board of the Progressive Book Club.)

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all mega-corporations with legions of lobbyists are created more than equal to anybody.”

I have a dream that the Yalie son of a Houston oil magnate can walk hand in hand with the daughter of a Wall Street hedge fund operator on the white sands of Southampton while evading inheritance taxes.

I have a dream that from the glorious Pacific to the bountiful Atlantic the Castro will become gayless and Greenwich Village will become free of feminism.

I have a dream that the Republican Party will come up with one new idea, any new idea, even if it is a rerun of one of Rush’s or my ideas, just to show that it isn’t completely brain-dead.

I have a dream that the young white guys playing with rifles at survivalist retreats in northern Michigan, that the middle-aged white guys playing Minuteman with guns at the Arizona border, and the older white guys frolicking at the Bohemian Grove, playing with whatever they play with, will keep people of different races or religions in their place. I have a dream that the Supreme Court will vote 5 to 4 to revoke the statehood of Hawaii—but not Alaska—vindicating you Birthers out there.

I have a dream that Rupert Murdoch and the Fortune 500, thanks to another Supreme Court vote of 5 to 4, will be free to buy the Senate, the House and the White House at a Sotheby’s auction, without elections or public financing of campaigns.

I have a dream that oil spills in the Gulf, mining in West Virginia, egg farming in Iowa and predatory lending in every state will keep evading oversight.

I have a dream that all our children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character, but by the size of their stock portfolios.

I have a dream that the former lily-white golf clubs of Georgia and the lily-white boardrooms of Halliburton will not be tainted by people of different races or religions.

May corporations get the American people and “government of the people, by the people and for the people” (Lincoln had it wrong) off our backs.

From the newsroom of Fox to the boardrooms of our corporate masters, let freedom ring.

Thanks to Justice Roberts Almighty, the tea party and the GOP, we’ll be free at last!

'We the people' don't count anymore. The powers that be keep us around to satisfy their needs and greed. We are only here to pay for their wars, and to provide our sons and daughters as fodder for those wars. They have only three things they are interested in....MONEY, POWER, and EMPIRE....and if we all suffer in the process of them 'acquiring' said interests, so be it.

I'm saying this because one of the last statements Obama made last night during his speech. My first thought was "What the fuck? Affairs of State are no longer being handled by the Dept of State?" I had to ask myself if we really have become a Fascist State. I'm beginning to believe we have.

The most chilling passage came at the end of the 19-minute speech, when Obama declared, “Our troops are the steel in our ship of state,” adding, “And though our nation may be traveling through rough waters, they give us confidence that our course is true.”

It is for this statement, rather than all the double-talk about troop withdrawals, that Obama’s miserable speech deserves to be remembered. It was rhetoric befitting a military-ruled banana republic or a fascist state. The military—not the Constitution, not the will of the people or the country’s ostensibly democratic institutions—constitutes the “steel” in the “ship of state.” Presumably, the democratic rights of the people are so much ballast to be cast overboard as needed.

I know what I have said here will piss off a number of Obama's ardent supporters, but so be it. I refuse to stand idly by and watch as the country I love is turned into a Fascist State controlled by the corporations, the wealthy, and the military.

The rest of the article can be found here, for those who are interested.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Obama administration is seeking authority from Congress that would compel internet service providers (ISPs) to turn over records of an individual's internet activity for use in secretive FBI probes.

In another instance where Americans are urged to trust their political minders, The Washington Post reported last month that "the administration wants to add just four words--'electronic communication transactional records'--to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval."

Under cover of coughing-up information deemed relevant to espionage or terrorism investigations, proposed changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) would greatly expand the volume of private records that can be seized through National Security Letters (NSLs).

Constitution-shredding lettres de cachet, NSLs are administrative subpoenas that can be executed by agencies such as the FBI, CIA or Defense Department, solely on the say so of supervisory agents.

The noxious warrants are not subject to court review, nor can a recipient even disclose they have received one. Because of their secretive nature, they are extremely difficult to challenge.

The fourth amendment unambiguously states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

However, in "new normal" America constitutional guarantees and civil rights are mere technicalities, cynical propaganda exercises jettisoned under the flimsiest of pretexts: the endless "War on Terror" where the corporate state's praetorian guards work the "dark side."

Once served, firms such as telecommunication providers, banks, credit card companies, airlines, health insurers, video rental services, even booksellers and libraries, are compelled to turn over what the secret state deem relevant records on targets of FBI fishing expeditions.

If burdensome NSL restrictions are breeched for any reason, that person can be fined or even jailed if gag orders built into the draconian USA Patriot Act are violated.

However, even the Patriot Act's abysmally lowered threshold for seizing private records specify that NSLs cannot be issued "solely on the basis of activities protected by the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States."

Despite these loose standards, congressional investigators, journalists and civil liberties watchdogs found that the FBI violated the rules of the road, such as they are, thousands of times. Between 2003-2006, the Bureau issued 192,499 NSLs, according to current estimates, the FBI continues to hand out tens of thousands more each year.

According to a May 2009 Justice Department letter sent to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, "in 2007, the FBI made 16,804 NSL requests" and followed-up the next year by issuing some "24,744 NSL requests ... to 7,225 United States persons."

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a 2007 report which concluded that the Bureau had systematically abused the process and exceeded their authority. A follow-up report published by the OIG in January found that serious civil liberties breeches continue under President Obama.

This is hardly surprising given the track record of the Obama administration.

"Reform," Obama-Style

The latest White House proposal would hand the secret state unprecedented access to the personal communications of every American.

What Bushist war criminals did secretly, Obama intends to do openly and with the blessings of a supine Congress. As constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald points out, "not only has Obama ... blocked any reforms, he has taken multiple steps to further expand unaccountable and unchecked surveillance power."

Nowhere is this more apparent than by administration moves to "reform" ECPA.

While the Justice Department claims their newly sought authority does not include "'content' of email or other Internet communications," this is so much eyewash to deceive the public.

In fact, the addition of so-called transactional records to the volume of files that the state can arbitrarily seize, would hand the government access to a limitless cache of email addresses, dates and times they were sent and received, and a literal snap-shot on demand of what any user looks at or searches when they log onto the internet.

As I have pointed out before, most recently last month when Idescribed the National Security Agency's PERFECT CITIZEN program, the roll-out of privacy-killing deep-packet inspection software developed by NSA already has the ability to read and catalogue the content of email messages flowing across private telecommunications networks.

Former Bushist Homeland Security official, Stewart A. Baker, applauded the proposal and told the Post, "it'll be faster and easier to get the data." Baker touts the rule change as a splendid way for ISPs to hand over "a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL."

While the Post claims "many internet service providers" have "resisted the government's demands to turn over electronic records," this is a rank mendacity.

A "senior administration official," speaking anonymously of course, told the Post that "most" ISPs already "turn over such data." Of course they do, and at a premium price!

Internet security analyst Christopher Soghoian has documented that just one firm, Sprint Nextel, routinely turned over their customer's geolocation data to law enforcement agencies and even built them a secure web portal to do so, eight million times in a single year!

Soghoian wrote last year that "government agents routinely obtain customer records from these firms, detailing the telephone numbers dialed, text messages, emails and instant messages sent, web pages browsed, the queries submitted to search engines, and of course, huge amounts of geolocation data, detailing exactly where an individual was located at a particular date and time."

As a public service, the secrecy-shredding web site Cryptomehas published dozens of so-called compliance guides for law enforcement issued by a plethora of telecoms and ISPs. Readers are urged to peruse Yahoo's manual for a taste of what these grifters hand over.

While the administration argues that "electronic communication transactional records" are the "same as" phone records that the Bureau can obtain with an NSL, seizing such records reveal far more about a person's life, and political views, than a list of disaggregated phone numbers. This is precisely why the FBI wants unlimited access to this data. Along with racial and religious profiling, the Bureau would be handed the means to build a political profile on anyone they deem an "extremist."

That "senior administration official" cited by the Post claims that access to a citizen's web history "allows us to intercede in plots earlier than we would if our hands were tied and we were unable to get this data in a way that was quick and efficient."

Perhaps our "change" administration has forgotten a simple historical fact: police states are efficient. The value of privacy in a republic, including whom one communicates with or where one's interests lie, form the core values of a democratic order; principles sorely lacking in our "new normal" Orwellian order!

In a small but significant victory, the ACLU announced this week that "the FBI has partially lifted a gag it imposed on American Civil Liberties Union client Nicholas Merrill in 2004 that prevented him from disclosing to anyone that he received a national security letter (NSL) demanding private customer records."

In a statement to reporters, Merrill said: "Internet users do not give up their privacy rights when they log on, and the FBI should not have the power to secretly demand that ISPs turn over constitutionally protected information about their users without a court order. I hope my successful challenge to the FBI's NSL gag power will empower others who may have received NSLs to speak out."

Despite this narrow ruling, the FBI intends to soldier on and the Obama administration is hell-bent on giving the Bureau even more power to operate in the dark.

Commenting on the Merrill case, The Washington Post reportedFBI spokesperson Mike Kortan claimed that NSL "secrecy is often essential to the successful conduct of counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations" and that public disclosure "may pose serious risks to the investigation itself and to other national security interests."

Those "other" interests, apparently, do not extend to the right to express one's views freely, particularly when they collide with the criminal policies of the secret state.

Monday, June 28, 2010

As the Tea Party, I like to refer to them as teabaggers, continue to stir up the deep seated hatred and bigotry of the feeble-minded Fukz Newz watchers, we face the threat of the Rethuglican absurdities quickly turning into atrocities soon after the November elections.

I fear that anyone who does not stand with the Rethuglicans will suffer for it.

The Outrageous

By Loren Adams, 27 June 2010

How can one forget the most absurd by succumbing to yet another rightwing takeover of the American political landscape? The nation races toward November at a frightening pace – onward to the resurgence of absurdities – absurdities that potentially lay ground for atrocities – a condition so fluently articulated by Voltaire of the 18th century.

The right-wing so-called “Tea Party Movement” is energized to capture the 2010 midterm; while progressives are depressed due to Obama’s relentless compromises and weak posturing on key issues significant to the base. Yes, progressives would be energized if Obama and the Democratic Congress would have shown some spine instead of whine.

Meanwhile we race toward a new form of fascism – yet with the same toxic ingredients that constituted Nazi Germany’s political recipe: (1) racial hatred; (2) self-righteousness; (3) religious zealotry; (4) ceremonial patriotism; (5) militarization; (6) national purity and superiority (now proudly referred to as “American exceptionalism”); and (7) the national craving for strong-man leadership.

The only thing missing is a national rightwing leader that can fill the role of an American fuhrer.

The following is from the mother of Jeff Miller, one of the four students who lost their lives that 4th of May 1970.

I lost my son 40 years ago at Kent State

By Elaine Holstein, May 4, 2010

Today, May 4, marks 40 years since my son, Jeff, was shot and killed on the campus of his college. He and three of his classmates were murdered by the National Guard at an anti-war protest at Kent State.

During a 13-second fusillade of rifle fire not only were Jeff, Allison Krause, Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder killed but nine more of their Kent State fellow students were also wounded.

The students who had gathered there that day — all unarmed — held a large range of opinions about the seemingly endless war in Vietnam.

Some of them, including Jeff, objected intensely to the increasing escalation of a war that had begun when they were barely in their teens. In fact, Jeff had written a poem about the war entitled, “Where Does It End?” in February of 1966, shortly before he turned 16.

Others in the crowd had mixed feelings.

Some were just onlookers, such as you would find at any gathering. Some, like Sandy, were on their way to their next class.

And so, May 4, 1970, became one of the blackest days in the history of our country.

It was the day I not only lost my child but also lost my innocence.

I could no longer take on faith what I had been taught all my life about my “constitutional rights,” the rights that supposedly made our country different from so many others.

The decade that followed was filled for me with grief, anger, disillusionment and lawsuits. At the end of our legal battles, we were pressured by the judge and by our lawyers into accepting a settlement in which the parents of the dead students discovered that their sons and daughters’ lives were worth a mere $15,000 each.

It was never about the money for me. I wanted an admission of culpability, and more than that, I wanted an assurance that no mother would ever again have to bury a child for simply exercising the freedom of speech. But all we got was a watered down statement that better ways must be found, etc., etc.

I also discovered what I perhaps should have known already: that so many of my compatriots did not feel as I did. They believed that the students who were killed or wounded got what they deserved and, as I heard far too often, the National Guard “should have killed more of them.”

And now it’s 2010 — 40 years later — and those wounded students are well into middle age, almost senior citizens.

But Jeff remains in my memory forever as that bright, funny, passionate 20 year old.

I have spent these 40 years watching my son, Russ, Jeff’s big brother, grow older. I’ve valued (perhaps more than I would have if Jeff had not died) the close, satisfying relationship we share.

I’ve had the great joy of seeing my grandchildren, Jeff (yes, another Jeff Miller) and Jamie evolve from cute little children into a couple of the most admirable adults I know.

I’ve danced at both their weddings and have been made happy by their happiness.

But, once in a while, I wonder about my son Jeff’s future that had so needlessly been cut short.

What would he have been like now at age 60? What sort of career would he have had? Would he have married? And what about those other grandchildren that my husband and I might have enjoyed?

Now, as I watch the news on TV each night, I deplore the increasing ugliness of politics, and I’m afraid. I know too well what can happen when hatred takes over.

Please, let us lower the volume and be civil toward each other.

For Jeff’s sake. And for all of ours.

Elaine Holstein, a retired school secretary and social worker, lives in New York City with her husband, Arthur, and has, on occasion, written articles and spoken to students on the subject of the Kent State shootings. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Working Class Warrior, also known as a blue-collar Democrat. You believe that the little guy is getting screwed by conservative greed-mongers and corporate criminals, and you’re not going to take it anymore.

Local Yocal News

QUOTES TO CONSIDER

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it. -- Mark Twain

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross. -- Sinclair Lewis

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. -- John Adams

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere. -- Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.

Comments from all readers are welcome and appreciated. Open discussion is allowed, trolls are not. As I am the editor of this blog, I am the one who makes the decision on what may be posted in the comments section. Free speech is a wonderful thing, but comments from trolls will be removed...and I decide who a troll is here.